Chill out, live longer

A psychological study has linked neuroticism and mortality, suggesting that mellowing with age could help people live longer.

In the study, researchers tracked the change in neuroticism levels of 1,663 aging men over a 12-year period.

A neurotic personality was defined as a person with the tendency to worry, feel excessive amounts of anxiety or depression and to react to stressful life events more negatively than people with low levels of the trait. Neuroticism levels were measured using a standardized personality test.

Using the data gathered in the first analysis, researchers calculated the men's mortality risk over an 18-year period using the average levels and rates of change.

By the end of the study, half of those men classified as highly neurotic with increasing levels of neuroticism had died while those whose levels decreased or were classified as less neurotic had between a 75 percent and 85 percent survival rate.

"We found that neurotic men whose levels dropped over time had a better chance at living longer," said Dan Mroczek, an associate professor of child development and family studies at Purdue University, who conducted the study. "They seemed to recover from any damage high levels of the trait may have caused. On the flip side, neurotic men whose neuroticism increased over time died much sooner than their peers."

The study will be published in the print edition of the U.S. journal Psychological Science in late May. More information is available from Purdue University’s press release.